


Timeline 10

by Lleurai



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 11:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 6,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleurai/pseuds/Lleurai
Summary: A recounting of timeline 10 for the 39 Graves Project.Stipulations for this timeline: J attends BrakebillsBigby is still at BrakebillsQ slips Fogg truth serum (not in his tea)Tesla FlexionQ and J die





	1. Prelude

Jane is sitting on Henry’s desk when he walks in. His jaw clenches reflexively. The sheer speed of the reaction adds some self-disgust to the headache that’s been brewing all afternoon.

“You’re late,” she says pertly.

“This is my office.” He congratulates himself silently on his mild, even tone and settles into his chair.

Her lips thin. “It’s happening,” and she slams a moth the size of her hand onto his desk.

“Do I have to remind you that this is your problem?”

“It is  _ our _ problem. And they aren’t even at Brakebills yet.”

“Our school year starts at the same time every year. We’ve got eyes on all our prospective entrants.”

“I don’t care when the term begins, get them here  _ now _ .” Jane bites off the final syllable and inhales through her nose. Perversely, seeing her upset makes Henry feel better. “Train them. Give them something, anything, to help them, in case he finds them.”

“‘In case’,” Henry shapes air quotes with his fingers and scoffs. “You’re still an optimist.”

Her gaze slides away from his. “I have to try. Have you taken what I told you into account?”

“I have. She should be here shortly.”

“Who did it end up being?”

Henry didn’t answer. “You’d better leave. She won’t be easy to convince, but at least she knows me.”

“One more thing.” She lays an elaborate pocketwatch next to the moth. “Just in case.”

“Speaking of time, we’ve got little of it,” he replies, leaning down to retrieve something. “Try not to use the door, won’t you?” As he comes back up from behind the desk, Jane is nowhere to be seen. He sets a bottle of brandy and two glasses on the desk, just as a knock sounds at the door.

Fogg sweeps the moth and the pocket watch into a drawer. “Enter.”

Marina steps in, looking haughty. She looks at Fogg and raises one eyebrow

“Marina. Have a seat. A drink?”

Marina rolls her eyes. “Please, you’ve never offered to share your booze with anyone and meant it.”

He simply removes one glass and pours two fingers of brandy into his own. “I meant my offer to you. You were a promising student, one of our most promising, and if you want to return to Brakebills, I’ve made an arrangement with the board.”

She tilts her head. “Go on.”

“You would be readmitted as a second year student. Your memories would be returned to you to enable you to complete your studies.”

Marina waits. Fogg smiles pleasantly at her. “That’s it? No locking me in my room at night, drugging me so I can’t use magic outside of class?”

“That’s it.” His smile never falters.

“To be honest, I expected something more medieval.”

“I assumed you would feel repeating a year and a half of coursework was punishment enough.”

“I do.” He can almost watch the calculations taking place in her mind. “But the hedge scene is so tedious. Who wants to be head bitch in charge of such a bunch of amateurs? I’ll re-enroll.”

“Glad to hear it,” Fogg responds honestly as he rises from his chair to shake her hand. “We’ll see you at start of term.” Is she plotting to double cross him in some way and take shameless advantage of her renewed access to the campus? Without a doubt. He can only hope her scheming, conniving presence might be the variable that breaks Jane’s impasse.


	2. Chapter 2

Quentin follows the letter rescheduling his interview through a tangled corner garden into an inexplicable summer afternoon. The lanky boy lounging on the stone sign seems as unbelievable as the rest. “Quentin … Coldwater?” he asks incredulously, his tone clearly implying  _ Did your parents hate you? _ “You’re late.” He unfolds himself into motion; Quentin is swept in his wake.

Across campus, Julia steps out of an elevator to find a doe-eyed girl scrolling through her phone. “Julia Wicker?” the girl drawls, and Julia almost hears the snap of bubblegum following her words. She nods without speaking. She’s never liked girls that coasted on their visual appeal; it’s something she prides herself on. She has substance. She is more than her glossy hair and she wears clothes because they’re comfortable, not because they’re stylish. (Although they are stylish.) The girl meeting her eyes and looking unimpressed probably knows how much each item she’s wearing cost. “You’ve been offered a preliminary exam for the graduate program at Brakebills. Come on.” And she spun on one dainty heel and started walking quickly away. Julia couldn’t swear she’d seen the other girl roll her eyes, but she was unshakably certain it had happened. 

The exams proceed as Fogg expects. Quentin, when pressed, erupts in a glorious display of psychokinesis, whirling an entire deck of playing cards around himself, building castles in the air. Julia’s previous nine exams have all resulted in different manifestations. Fogg finds himself looking forward to what she manifests this time. He stops looking forward to it when her frustrated gesture ignites an elaborate, multicolored sigil on the examination table and nearly singes off his eyebrows.

Both are admitted, of course.


	3. Chapter 3

Meta-composition puts Julia in the Knowledge loft, tucked in snug above the library. She thinks the cozy alcoves with their soundproofed partitioning are the most comforting space she’s ever seen, and that’s even without the wealth of knowledge beneath her feet. Living above the library means constant access to the library -- there are spells, but they’re easily unpicked, especially by the sharp-edged second-year who greets Julia on her first day with “Don’t f%cking bump me, I’m undoing a  _ very  _ complicated locking spell and I don’t want to f%cking die.”

Marina has heard of manners. They seem like nice things for other people to wield. She fancies herself a more Cersei Lannister type. Power is power. Her own discipline is nullification, the ability to counteract others’ magic. As much as she’d never admit it, having two more years of access to Brakebills faculty and research to hone her skills is a pretty neat prospect. She’s got an intuitive grasp of circumstances and can interfere in almost anything if she sees it being cast, and picking apart established spells, including wards, is nearly within her grasp.

Quentin, meanwhile, doesn’t even have a discipline. Julia faintly wishes she were surprised, with a flush of pity. It’s just so  _ Quentin. _ He’s sent to the Physical Cottage because they have the fewest members, so he coaches Alice through breaking in. A lens of air to bend light. Quentin wishes he had learned to pick locks as well as stack decks and riffle shuffle. Seems more useful now. But when they at last burst through the door with sunset honeyed behind them, Eliot smiles at him and puts a smoking drink in his hand, and Margo quirks, “What took you so long?”, and his lack of a discipline doesn’t really feel like he’s missing anything.

(Kady, on the couch already, broke a window. A familiarity with battle magic makes admission to the Cottage a lot easier.)


	4. Chapter 4

_ The girl ahead of her couldn’t be out of high school yet. She wears a charming coat with a cape fastened across the hollow of her throat, in demure gray-blue. “Are you listening?” the blonde child asks Julia. _

_ Julia blinks at her. “I … am?” she guesses.  _ At least I feel like I’m listening?

_ “He’s coming,” Jane insists. “You’re in danger and so is your floppy-haired friend. You have to work harder. I don’t know how long it will take him this time.” _

_ “I’m sorry,” Julia ekes out, eyebrows drawn together. It’s not a question but it’s kind of a question? “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” _

_ A frustrated sigh. “You need to learn to protect yourself. Ask the psychic. And take Quentin with you.” As cryptic dreams went, it was surprisingly cogent. If only Julia had any clue what it meant. The forest path faded into mist before she could figure out where it led. “Before the Beast arrives!” _

Julia awakes with a start. Surprisingly, the most vivid image in her mind isn’t the forest path or the chipper school girl, but rather the dark eyes she’d met in Basic Transformations class yesterday. A boy called something odd, Toy or Cash or something.

*****

Across campus, Penny splashes cold water on his face. Getting pulled into a pretty girl’s dream is infinitely preferable to hearing Quentin F%cking Coldwater’s Top 100 Pop Hits Remix, but the psychic whiplash from the other person’s waking wasn’t fun. And he can totally live without the epic quest lead-in, thanks very much.

All the same, maybe he’d check on the girl tomorrow. Nothing better to do in Basic Transformations.

*****

The next day, Julia learns what a Traveler is and Penny falls in love.

Dean Fogg tells them dreams are often confusing or symbolic, rather than literal. Quentin tells them he wants to learn everything anyway, so … sure? Learning defensive spells would be fine? Why not? (He realizes why not when he’s running on two and a half hours of sleep from all his extracurricular studying -- it’s just as well that Julia ended things with James shortly after the term started, because she has no time to even think about maintaining an off-campus relationship.) Penny wonders aloud if all that shit music is taking up so much space in Quentin’s head that he has no room for circumstances and Popper. Quentin tells him what he can do with his opinions.


	5. Chapter 5

Alice spends more time in the library than the Cottage. The Physical Kids joke that she must sleep there sometimes. They’re kind to her when they see her -- well, Quentin is, or at least he intends to be -- but they see her so rarely. Her own quest consumes her, sends her searching for a spell to summon a vision of the past or even Charlie himself, desperately.

And Marina knows desperation. Desperation is potential leverage.

Alice is suspicious and private; it takes Marina some time to tease out what she’s looking for. Once she knows, she promises she’ll help the younger girl search -- if Alice will help her in turn. 

(Of course there’s a price, a favor exchanged. Alice isn’t even disappointed. This is how the world works, the world that tried to lock her out of magic.)

Alice, capable of sneaking into Brakebills, clever enough to get herself through all the wards and shields and baffles, is a treasure for Marina. In exchange for helping her with some research (which, whatever, she knows this library like the back of her hand by now), she can direct Alice to steal whatever catches her eye. Talismans and spells aren’t off-limits to her as a Brakebills student, but she can sell them to those hedge witch plebs and bankroll her eventual fabulous vacation lifestyle. Between Kady’s raw power and Alice’s talent, there’s not much Marina can’t get ahold of. Brakebills isn’t forever, and Marina is planning for the rest of her life. 

Alice and Kady are never best friends, but between feeling left on the fringes of the Physical Kids and spending so much time scheming with Marina, they bond. There’s a kind of trust between them, that they’ll have each other’s backs (since it seems no one else will). Do they tell each other secrets, their hopes and fears? If they do, they don’t tell anyone else.


	6. Chapter 6

Julia loves her attic but acknowledges the Cottage has its charms. Certainly it’s more fun to visit Q with a well-stocked bar than it would be if he were in the treehouse or something. His boyfriend is apparently a man of many talents, and mixologist is one of them. She never makes it all the way into the common room before Eliot gets a drink into her hand, and somehow it’s always exactly what she wants. She accuses him more than once of using a spell; he scoffs, “Can you believe this, Bambi? As if I don’t know how to make the perfect drink without resorting to magic. I’ve never been so insulted.” 

Margo purses her lips and shakes her head slowly, donning an I’m Just Disappointed expression. “I know, El, I know. Kids these days, no respect. It’s a damn shame.”

And then Quentin laughs and Eliot laughs and Margo swans away with a perfect smile on her perfect face.

Margo is Julia’s least favorite part of the Physical Cottage. When it becomes clear that Q and Eliot are really dating, not just fooling around, Julia tries to be nice to her. But Margo is just so  _ fake _ . Julia compliments her dress: “Thanks, it’s next season. Hasn’t even hit stores yet.” Julia asks how she’s feeling: “F%cking great, as long as no one lets Todd near the music.” Julia offers to help decorate for a party: “Knock yourself out, Gold Star.” It drives Julia crazy. Has the older girl never said a sincere word in her _life_? 

“It’s like she’s painted this technicolor surface onto herself and she’s completely hollow under it!” she vents to Quentin one afternoon. “Like she gets up in the morning and just presses this Margo prosthetic into place so she’ll have a shape to interact with other people! A personality prosthetic!!” She flings herself onto his bed. “I mean really, Q, do you know even one single thing about her?”

Quentin looks thoughtful. “She likes fettuccine.”

Julia throws a pillow at him.

*****

Margo thinks Julia is a snob. The first-year is always on her manners, sitting on the couch without touching anyone else’s stuff, making sure to say the Right Thing any time they’re forced to interact directly. Girls like Julia have been looking down their noses at Margo and her makeup and her shoes for Margo’s whole life.  _ Pretty or smart, that’s the choice women get, _ she had explained to Eliot once.  _ Maybe strong if you don’t mind being called a ballbuster. But not all three. _ So Julia thinks that Margo chose pretty and that makes Julia a better, more serious person than her -- that’s how Margo sees it. So she adds a little pout when Julia’s around and lets her words drag a little slower and wears shorter skirts than strictly necessary. 

The nickname is an accident. Todd tried a spell to turn water into wine but somehow turned all the wine into rosé. Margo was tapping her foot while Eliot attempted to restore their inventory. Quentin was going on and on about whatever had happened in whichever class and Margo was only halfway listening, so she caught “--a perfect score, like absolute top of the class” and snapped out, “Whaddaya want a gold star?” It turned out he was talking about Julia’s grade, which,  _ of course _ he was, so Julia became ‘Gold Star’ to the Physical Kids. Well, mostly to Margo. The nickname gives her an outlet when she wants to annoy Julia while maintaining plausible deniability.

*****

Julia hears raised voices coming from Quentin’s room, but she passed Eliot in the common room on her way up. It says a lot about how much time they’ve been spending together that it didn’t occur to her that Quentin might be talking to someone else. She’s only a couple of steps outside the door when she recognizes Margo’s voice. 

“I’m  _ telling _ you, it doesn’t make sense! Rupert’s got the sword in chapter six when they’re talking to the badgers, then when Fiona gets attacked, he whines about only having his hunting knife.”

“That’s because there’s that whole scene in between those where the badger search party finds the enchanted tree and  _ obviously _ he left the sword in the meeting-hall. Plover even confirmed it in his 1940 letter to Lewis--”

Margo and Quentin are talking over each other. Quentin’s gestures are expansive and his hair is a mess, sure sign he’s been running his hands through it. Margo punctuates her words with sharp, tight gestures, keeping her hands between them. Julia has never seen her look so engaged, so present. She’s also never seen anyone care about a single Fillory trivium as much as Quentin.  _ She should care about things more; it looks good on her _ rises unbidden to Julia’s mind. She taps on the doorframe, clears her throat, smiles at Q. Maybe smiles at them both.


	7. Chapter 7

Marina finds a spell for Alice. Using a scrying device such as a mirror (or a vessel of water, but the surface has to be at least four feet long, so) and representations of each planet, Murkowski’s Zodiacal Communique will let the caster speak to a spirit in the afterlife. Alice can ask Charlie what happened. She can tell her brother she loves him.

“Oh yeah, it takes two to cast. And I,” Marina taps a finger against her lips, tilts her head, “don’t care. So you’ll need to find someone who does. Good luck!”

As it turns out, Kady does.

But the spell doesn’t work. Or it does, and it’s not the right spell. Or it isn’t the right spell and also doesn’t work. Charlie’s face appears in the mirror, then flickers, glitching in and out. His expression keeps changing. The glass glows blue as if it’s reflecting a light from another room, but the room they’re in is pitch black.

As it turns out, Charlie isn’t dead.

He teases Alice, laughs at her. Kady tries the spells she knows: battle magic, a ward, a shield. Charlie burns through them all and wraps his arms around. Kady is ash in seconds. Alice is hyperventilating. 

Professors Sunderland and March find the room, following the alarms set off by unauthorized magic. The mirror is crazed with cracks. The niffin is gone. Kady’s bag in the corner is the only way to identify her from the pile of ashes, and there’s no trace at all of Alice Quinn.


	8. Chapter 8

Penny has lived in the Consciousness Building since his second week at Brakebills. Professor Bigby took one look at him and clapped her hands in delight. “A Traveler! How marvelous and rare.” Travelers, she informed him, are only human-shaped. Really they’re magical creatures, not unlike pixies, hmm? So they’ll move him to the Consciousness Building because the psychics probably have some exercises that can help him get a good grip on the telepathy, and in the meantime he can begin independent studies with Professor Sunderland, oh, and with her as well! She brushed past him without waiting for an answer, and that set the course for Penny’s studies at Brakebills.

He visits Julia in the library loft sometimes, because he’d rather do almost anything than spend time socially with Quentin F%cking Coldwater. Unfortunately that’s one of Julia’s favorite ways to spend time, so Penny finds himself in the Physical Cottage, trying not to hear Quentin think about Eliot. “I don’t understand how a mind so empty can be so  _ fucking loud! _ ” he shouts at him once. Quentin and Eliot have been dating for three weeks and Penny is sick of it. 

In the wake of Kady and Alice’s deaths, the Physical Cottage is quieter -- Quentin is their only first-year now. The loft feels practically haunted, and Marina and Julia barely see each other. Penny is the only one in their group mostly unaffected, not having been close to either girl. He bends his attention to helping Julia cope. The first time she falls asleep beside him, he thinks she’s out of the shadow of tragedy. He thinks this is probably the best thing he’s ever done.


	9. Chapter 9

The afternoon class is sweltering hot. Quentin is definitely, absolutely paying attention. He’s sure he is. Hearing every word. Taking great notes. Aware in a vague way that Julia, seated on his right, is holding Penny’s hand.  _ Gross _ he thinks irreverently. Penny leans back to reach around Julia and pull Quentin’s hair. And then Professor Van der Weghe’s voice stops.

It takes a few seconds for Quentin to realize that everything is silent, that he hasn’t lifted his head from his notebook to find out why, and that he can’t lift his head. Or move anything else. Slow, deliberate footsteps advance toward him from the back of the classroom. The seat beside him is empty.

*****

When Professor Van der Weghe freezes mid-word, Penny reacts without thinking. He and Julia have reappeared in the infirmary before she realizes anything has happened. 

“What- Why?” she starts to ask, but Penny is already shouting to Professor Lipson.

“Everyone was frozen, I think the clock even stopped ticking. Classroom 16-A! Get some f%cking help!”

*****

By the time Dean Fogg blows open the door, Professor Van der Weghe has lost his eyes and his tongue. The cluster of faculty members right behind Fogg unleashes the cooperative Barryman’s Expulsion they’ve been building together as they ran. The Beast retreats, vanishing. Someone retches. Quentin collapses onto his desk.  _ It’s over, _ he thinks, though he doesn’t know what ‘it’ is.


	10. Chapter 10

Eliot won’t let Margo kidnap Quentin from their bed to start the Trials. Instead, he brings Quentin with him to the fire to await the rest of the first-years. Margo tries to get Julia, but Penny, still jumpy, travels them both away before she can. She winds up having to track them down at one of the library’s study tables, explain the situation, and send them to the bonfire. They get there before she does. It’s not fair.

Julia and Quentin are paired together for the Third Trial. It’s not what she expected, but it makes sense. “After all,” she tells him, “you know me like no one else does.”

“You like me like no one else does,” he laughs back.

Julia smiles so he can see she knows it’s a joke, but shakes her head because she also knows it isn’t. “You’re wrong, Q. This place, these people, Brakebills is good for you. You’ve got friends, or at least people you’re friendly with. You’ve got Eliot, and anyone can see he’s crazy about you.”

Quentin ducks his head so his hair falls in his eyes, a habit when he’s embarrassed or shy. “I know, Jules. It’s all almost too good to believe, except…” his voice trails off.

Neither of them say it. Kady. Alice. The Beast. Magic could be miraculous, and more terrifying than either would have thought possible. 

“I finally,” Quentin swallows, turning the words over, “I finally feel like I belong somewhere. I’m not jealous of you anymore. But I’m … I’m afraid of losing this, Jules. I have something worth losing, and I’m afraid every day that something will go wrong.” His ropes slither loose to hit the ground.

Julia nods slowly. “I think I got used to pretty much everyone being a little jealous of me.” Quentin huffs out a small laugh. “And I mean, Brakebills, it’s just more of the same, right? This is school, and I’m good at school. But, I don’t know, Q, it feels --  _ I _ feel -- like maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I weren’t the best at something. You know? Like maybe magic is a thing I can just  _ do _ , not need to be ranked at, or seen doing. Fogg told me he thinks I’m ready to start developing my own research projects, which he usually doesn’t let students start until second year, and all I could think about was this sense of possibility.” She meets Quentin’s eyes squarely, smiling again. “That there’s so much I can learn. Never mind how early I’m getting to it or how long other people take. I think this might be what growing up feels like, a little.” Her ropes slither loose to the ground. 

Their laughter shifts abruptly to groans of pain, and eventually two geese flap away into the night.


	11. Chapter 11

Brakebills South is a nightmare of Mayakovsky’s sneering Russian.

“Why you can’t bend index finger in way you are told? Girlfriend must be very disappointed.” 

“You are shit magician. Mebbe can work magic in toilet. You should try it! Cannot possibly be worse.”

“Oh, disgusting, this time you are all gooey eyes at each other. Worthless!”

That last catches Julia’s ear despite how hard she’s been tuning out Mayakovsky’s voice. “This time?” His silencing spell has only been lifted for a few hours; her throat is sore.

“ _ Da _ , this time.” He squints down at her. Maybe he’s seeing double, she thinks, and hears Penny stifle a chuckle. “You are Henry’s favorite, yes? It is so every time. Boring.”

“I don’t understand.” Julia tries her reliable ‘Good Student Seeks Additional Information’ smile on him. 

Mayakovsky sniffs. Maybe the vodka renders him immune. “Every time whatever time magic nonsense Henry is playing with resets. Poof, it is summer; you and the floppy-haired one are prancing around like little lambs. Henry takes you under his wing, teaches you barely more than nothing, you come here and are basically useless. And then after some time, repeat.”

For a minute, Julia thinks he’s actually speaking Russian; she can’t understand his words at all. As the meanings of them filter through to her mind, they don’t make any more sense. It sounds like he’s talking about … time travel maybe? Or something??

Whatever her face looks like as she tries to parse this screed, it drives Mayakovsky to braying laughter. “Go on, ask him when you get back. Remind Henry the fool that Mayakovsky is Master Magician, with better magic than him!”


	12. Chapter 12

Penny is pretty sure Mayakovsky is insane. For once, Quentin is in complete agreement. But Julia sticks to her guns that they need answers.

When she brings up the possibility of time travel with Dean Fogg, he tells her, “Horomancy is a messy and imprecise art. You can study it next year” and changes the subject emphatically. When she brings it up again at their next study session, he gets up and walks out of the room. That’s when she goes to the boys.

It’s not that difficult to obtain truth serum when you can teleport. Penny is in and out of the infirmary and various faculty spaces until they have what they need. Julia adapts Ansel’s Dissolubility Charm to render the serum endermic. Truth serum might break down in hot liquids (tea), so they’re going to use Quentin’s singular talents to dump it on Fogg directly.

Julia gives Quentin the time they’ll be reviewing her latest research. When he enters the classroom they’re using, it’s the most natural thing in the world to try to wave to Julia while navigating around the irregularly shaped table she’s standing beside. And when he trips, what else can Dean Fogg do but catch him at the elbow? In moments Quentin is set right, his message for Julia delivered -- “El and I are actually gonna have an early dinner but we’d like to meet you after for some games maybe” -- and he’s back out the door.

Right about the time Fogg’s tongue starts to feel thick.

“God damn it, Julia,” he enunciates carefully. “You’ve managed to dose me.”

“On your wrist,” she says quietly, and Quentin comes back in. A few taps on his phone to send a text, and Penny is there too, with Eliot and Margo. “I have some questions.”

“Oh, you have exactly one question. Get on with it.”

“What was Mayakovsky trying to tell me about time travel?”

Fogg looks to Quentin. “Do you remember what Jane was given in  _ The Girl Who Told Time _ ? 

Quentin stutters, “Uh, yeah, yeah, Ember gave her a uh watch and a locket.”

Fogg snorts. “Ember gave her the ability to f%ck with time on a cosmic scale, and Jane used it to create a time loop. When she’d fail to stop the Beast, she’d restart the loop.”

Eliot reaches out to grasp Quentin around the shoulders and pull him closer, an apparently involuntary movement.

“So, what, we keep getting dragged into this? This is just the worst year at Brakebills ever?”

Fogg chuckled to himself. “Oh, no, that’d be the Plague Year of ‘22. You have no idea what teaching magic to these f%cked up children year after year is like.”

The students glanced at each other. “We … we sure don’t,” Julia stammered out.

“So what happens?” Penny grates out. “What happens in these loops that she resets?”

Fogg blinks. “Quentin dies. Julia dies. So far, at least two of the other three of you die. And the Beast triumphs.”

“F%ck that,” at least two of the other three respond.

“Is there anything we can do?” asks Julia, quiet, desperate. “Any way to review these other timelines or plan for what’s coming?”

“Weelll,” Fogg draws out the word, “there is one possibility. But it won’t work.”


	13. Chapter 13

The Tesla Flexion explodes spectacularly. Quentin and Julia are lightly scorched, but otherwise unharmed. Dean Fogg doesn’t say “I told you so” with his words, but he emotes it intensely with his face. 

Penny later confirms he was also chanting it in his mind.


	14. Chapter 14

It’s not that weird to find out you’re almost certainly going to die in a weird time loop, right? Groundhog’s Day gone horribly wrong? I mean, you won’t even remember it when the loop resets, so it barely even counts as really dying.

Quentin is expending a lot of words on “make me feel better about this, Eliot,” and Julia is just letting the torrent go. There’s really no way to make him feel fundamentally better.

But she can plan, at least. “We need to practice battle magic. We need an offensive strategy.”

“Is ‘run away’ not a viable strategy?” Penny asks.

“No,” Julia says calmly. “Fogg says the Beast always finds us.”

“Fine,” says Penny, and vanishes.

It doesn’t even take that much sweet-talking to convince Bigby to give him her own copy of Advanced Battle Magic, complete with all her notes and annotations. The pixie has no sense of altruism but a very keen sense for potential drama. Battle magic, with all its destructive potential and fraught casting circumstances, definitely carries that potential among this group.


	15. Chapter 15

Bigby’s class on defensive uses for battle magic (Fogg’s way of sliding around the board’s ban on the subject) begins in the second year, so Eliot and Margo try to teach everything they know to the younger three. It’s an exercise in frustration, and no one feels like they’re making progress. 

The emotion suppression spell is Quentin’s idea -- “Are you sure you don’t just  _ want  _ to not feel your emotions, Coldwater? Because I wouldn’t” -- but it makes Julia nervous. Not nervous enough to refuse, though. No one knows when the Beast will return; Fogg tells them it hasn’t been consistent across timelines. (“Things change. That’s the entire point of restarting the loop, in fact.”) The school year is winding down, weeks passing while they try to master an entire class of magic.

The emotion suppression spell works, although they all get a bit loopy after they drink from the phylacteries and reclaim their feelings. Eliot says it makes him feel like a cheap drunk. Quentin giggles and kisses his cheek, then rubs his face against Eliot’s shoulder. 

Margo laughs unreservedly like the sun breaking through thunderclouds. Julia smiles, reaches out to touch her hair. Eliot staggers out of the common room with Q wrapped around him, still giggling. Penny’s hand slides down her back, warm and heavy. Margo’s hair is so soft. Her eyes are so dark. 

Julia will claim Margo kissed her. Margo will insist Julia kissed her. Penny will agree with whoever is closest at the time. 

None of them will blame it on the spell.


	16. Chapter 16

On a cool morning in April, just before sunrise, Fogg arrives at his office wearing sunglasses and running through his mental notes for the upcoming board meeting.  _ Schmooze and placate obstructive bureaucrats so I can continue to run my school. Wonderful. _ He doesn’t register the slight figure seated beside his office door until he is right beside her, and he drops his keys in shock.

There, with her hair brushed and her ankles neatly crossed, sits Alice Quinn.


	17. Chapter 17

They adjourn to his office. Fogg notifies the board that he may be late.

“Explain it to me from the beginning, please, Miss Quinn.”

Her chin trembles. “Kady and I wanted to contact my brother. I just wanted to know what had happened to him. No one would talk about it. I still … I still don’t know the whole story. He’s a niffin, now. He k- killed her. And then he,” her breath hitches, “he took me away.”

“Where did he take you?”

“I don’t, I don’t know. It was all so strange. There were lights and colors that aren’t real, that we can’t see normally. And noise, all the time. I saw … things. I don’t know.”

Fogg steeples his fingers and speaks as comfortingly as he can. “It’s all right, Alice. What happened next?”

“I don’t know that either. I just … was here. Maybe he got bored of me and put me back.”

The dean considers. Not much is known of niffins after the transformation, certainly nothing of motivations or desires. What she says is as plausible as he can imagine. But his intuition is shrieking that something is wrong here.

“I’d like to have the healers look you over. There may be residual damage from your exposure to whatever realms or dimensions the niffin traveled through.”

Alice nods docilely and allows Fogg to lead her to the infirmary, where he places her in Professor Lipson’s care.


	18. Chapter 18

It is 3:28 AM when the campus wards begin shrieking in Fogg’s -- and every other professor’s -- head. All of the alarms, all of the feedback alerts, everything. Fogg leaps from his bed, catches one foot in the sheets, falls, rolls back onto his feet, still moving toward the door. It only takes a moment to snatch his ring of keys and talismans and shove it in his pocket. He directs his will to the singular point of focus that magic requires, hands and fingers flashing in sharp movements. The alarms begin to fall silent, but his queries of the wards do not reassure him: they are being disassembled, removed entirely. 

He bends his left ring finger toward his thumb and flicks one nail against the other: The Library is practically glowing with magic, while the rest of campus shows only the low flickering of ambient spellwork. He runs. 

Without breaking stride, he casts a charm to wake the runner lights implanted throughout the grounds. No point sprinting through the dark and risking breaking his neck. Fogg snaps one talisman and drops both halves on the ground, panting a message to the rest of the faculty. “Library. Assume all wards breached. Internal threat.” Every professor hears his words from thin air and races to the Library.

Marina Andrieski is casting faster than he’s ever seen her cast, face totally blank. Fogg thinks she might not even see him. There’s something horrifying about a face -- a young woman -- normally so animated and expressive gone flat as a painted icon. His horror increases when he sees the enameled handle of a thin, needle-like blade jutting from her right shoulder. 

“Kerian’s Mind-Stealer,” Fogg breathes as footsteps pound behind him. Bigby and Sunderland have caught up. Sunderland starts a binding spell, something to freeze Marina’s hands in place. The air cracks with the smell of ozone, and she hisses in pain. The tips of her fingers are blistered. She shakes them out and starts again. Bigby is flinging out a sleeping spell. Fogg tries to summon the blade from Marina’s shoulder. Again, that lightning-like scorch of the air, and all three spells fall apart.

Alice steps out from the shadows behind Marina. “It won’t do you any good. I have more than enough power to cut off anything you try to cast.”

Somewhere inside a thousand layers of cynicism and misanthropy, Fogg’s heart hurts. “Why?”

“Because he found me, out there burning up with raw magic. And he took away the part that couldn’t stop crying, and he taught me more than you’ll ever know about power.” Her eyes gleam electric blue. 

“Who did, Alice?” Fogg asks, inevitability dragging at him like the tide going out.

Marina yanks at the air, and the last ward against teleportation collapses. A man in a neat gray suit stands next to Alice, a cloud of moths buzzing around his head and obscuring his face. Alice’s lips form the shape of a smile without any of the warmth. “The Beast, of course.”


	19. Chapter 19

Fogg’s one consolation is that Jane will have felt the wards fall, including the barrier that kept teleportation from working. She will know what’s happened.

He blasts the Beast with the second stage of the Rhinemann, knowing he doesn’t have enough power to cast the Ultra. Several of the moths crumple to the ground. Alice gestures, and Bigby flings out a hand to deflect her casting. Footsteps, more teachers arriving. 

Then the Beast whips his head to the right. “A Traveler! How delicious” and he vanishes. Marina’s hands hang limply at her sides; she’s dismantled every defense and protective spell around Brakebills. They are completely vulnerable.

Alice manages to get a whole spell out uninterrupted, and suddenly the air around the faculty feels thicker. Casting feels like dragging through fingers through molasses. No one has a chance of stopping her when she turns to her left and rips out Marina’s spine.

Fogg wonders what’s keeping Jane.

*****

Penny isn’t sure what kind of disaster is unfolding, but he  _ is _ sure that Julia needs to be elsewhere. He grabs her hands in the loft above the library and jumps them to the cottage. “Quentin! Q!” she screams as soon as she can draw breath. “Something very bad is happening!”

Quentin and Eliot stumble into the hallway. “Jules, what-”

“There’s no time!”

“No,” a cultured voice behind her says. “There really isn’t.”

Julia whirls to see the Beast holding Penny aloft by his throat. The boy’s eyes are screwed shut, and he seems to be flickering: trying to travel. Trying, and failing. His lips silently form Julia’s name; she presses her hands against her mouth. The Beast considers him for a moment, ignoring Julia’s stifled sobs. Then he bears down with a crunch and drops the corpse.

They try to run, but there’s nowhere to go; he’s standing in front of the stairs. A blast of fire from one of the other doorways singes a couple more of the moths, but there are so many. The Beast crooks three of his six fingers, and Margo comes flying from her room. Her chest is nauseatingly crumpled. Her doe eyes are glazed and blank.

“Margo!” Eliot roars. He isn’t even sure what he’s trying to cast as he races through the gestures. The Beast is faster. He lunges forward and bites off Eliot’s hands. 

It ends quickly, amid blood and screams. The Beast snaps their necks and lets them fall. Eliot, Julia, Quentin. He chews thoughtfully as he disappears.

*****

When the Beast appears next to Alice, Fogg knows he doesn’t live through this one.

Then time stops.


	20. Chapter 20

Jane rests one hand on his shoulder. In the other, she holds the elaborate pocketwatch from his office. 

“You took your sweet f%cking time,” he groans. Another failure. She’ll have to try it again.

“I had to find this,” she gestures with the watch, “behind all your whiskey.”

“You told me to keep it safe. It’s widely known that if anyone were to interfere with my alcohol supplies, my vengeance would be terrible to behold. Ergo, safe.”

Jane rolls her eyes, then sobers as she looks at the Beast and Alice, standing so close together. “Oh, Martin, Martin. Such a waste.” She fiddles with the watch. “How many times will we have to do this, Henry?”

He contemplates their previous failures, nine plus this one. Ten now. “As many times as we have to, I suppose.”

Jane nods firmly and spins the stem on the pocketwatch, reaching back into Quentin Coldwater’s past for the tenth time.


End file.
